Hallidie Building, Commercial building in Financial District, San Francisco, United States
The Hallidie Building is a seven-story office building at 130 Sutter Street in San Francisco's Financial District, with a facade made almost entirely of glass panels. The glass is suspended in front of the structural frame by inverted beams anchored to the concrete floor slabs, making it one of the earliest examples of a curtain wall facade.
Architect Willis Polk designed the building in 1918 and named it after Andrew Smith Hallidie, the man who introduced the cable car to San Francisco. At the time of its completion, no other building had used glass as an exterior cladding material at this scale.
The ground floor hosts the Center for Architecture + Design, a space open to visitors with exhibitions about buildings and cities. It draws people who are curious about how the built environment shapes daily life.
The building sits on Sutter Street in the Financial District and is easy to reach on foot from Union Square. Standing on the opposite sidewalk gives the best view of the full glass facade, especially in the morning when the light falls directly on it.
The exterior is decorated with ornamental ironwork painted gold, running along the balconies, fire escapes, and cornices in a pattern that feels more decorative than structural. This detail was highly unusual for an office building of that era and gives the facade a look unlike anything built around it at the time.
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